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List Azure deny assignments

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Similar to a role assignment, a deny assignment attaches a set of deny actions to a user, group, or service principal at a particular scope for the purpose of denying access. Deny assignments block users from performing specific Azure resource actions even if a role assignment grants them access.

This article describes how to list deny assignments.

Important

You can't directly create your own deny assignments. Deny assignments are created and managed by Azure.

How deny assignments are created

Deny assignments are created and managed by Azure to protect resources. You can't directly create your own deny assignments. However, you can specify deny settings when creating a deployment stack, which creates a deny assignment that is owned by the deployment stack resources. Deployment stacks is currently in preview. For more information, see Protect managed resources against deletion.

Compare role assignments and deny assignments

Deny assignments follow a similar pattern as role assignments, but also have some differences.

Capability Role assignment Deny assignment
Grant access ✅
Deny access ✅
Can be directly created ✅
Apply at a scope ✅ ✅
Exclude principals ✅
Prevent inheritance to child scopes ✅
Apply to classic subscription administrator assignments ✅

Deny assignment properties

A deny assignment has the following properties:

Property Required Type Description
DenyAssignmentName Yes String The display name of the deny assignment. Names must be unique for a given scope.
Description No String The description of the deny assignment.
Permissions.Actions At least one Actions or one DataActions String[] An array of strings that specify the control plane actions to which the deny assignment blocks access.
Permissions.NotActions No String[] An array of strings that specify the control plane action to exclude from the deny assignment.
Permissions.DataActions At least one Actions or one DataActions String[] An array of strings that specify the data plane actions to which the deny assignment blocks access.
Permissions.NotDataActions No String[] An array of strings that specify the data plane actions to exclude from the deny assignment.
Scope No String A string that specifies the scope that the deny assignment applies to.
DoNotApplyToChildScopes No Boolean Specifies whether the deny assignment applies to child scopes. Default value is false.
Principals[i].Id Yes String[] An array of Microsoft Entra principal object IDs (user, group, service principal, or managed identity) to which the deny assignment applies. Set to an empty GUID 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 to represent all principals.
Principals[i].Type No String[] An array of object types represented by Principals[i].Id. Set to SystemDefined to represent all principals.
ExcludePrincipals[i].Id No String[] An array of Microsoft Entra principal object IDs (user, group, service principal, or managed identity) to which the deny assignment does not apply.
ExcludePrincipals[i].Type No String[] An array of object types represented by ExcludePrincipals[i].Id.
IsSystemProtected No Boolean Specifies whether this deny assignment was created by Azure and cannot be edited or deleted. Currently, all deny assignments are system protected.

The All Principals principal

To support deny assignments, a system-defined principal named All Principals has been introduced. This principal represents all users, groups, service principals, and managed identities in a Microsoft Entra directory. If the principal ID is a zero GUID 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 and the principal type is SystemDefined, the principal represents all principals. In Azure PowerShell output, All Principals looks like the following:

Principals              : {
                          DisplayName:  All Principals
                          ObjectType:   SystemDefined
                          ObjectId:     00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
                          }

All Principals can be combined with ExcludePrincipals to deny all principals except some users. All Principals has the following constraints:

  • Can be used only in Principals and cannot be used in ExcludePrincipals.
  • Principals[i].Type must be set to SystemDefined.

List deny assignments

Follow these steps to list deny assignments.

Important

You can't directly create your own deny assignments. Deny assignments are created and managed by Azure. For more information, see Protect managed resources against deletion.

Prerequisites

To get information about a deny assignment, you must have:

  • Microsoft.Authorization/denyAssignments/read permission, which is included in most Azure built-in roles.

List deny assignments in the Azure portal

Follow these steps to list deny assignments at the subscription or management group scope.

  1. In the Azure portal, open the selected scope, such as resource group or subscription.

  2. Select Access control (IAM).

  3. Select the Deny assignments tab (or select the View button on the View deny assignments tile).

    If there are any deny assignments at this scope or inherited to this scope, they'll be listed.

    Screenshot of Access control (IAM) page and Deny assignments tab that lists deny assignments at the selected scope.

  4. To display additional columns, select Edit Columns.

    Screenshot of deny assignments columns pane that shows how to add columns to list of deny assignments.

    Column Description
    Name Name of the deny assignment.
    Principal type User, group, system-defined group, or service principal.
    Denied Name of the security principal that is included in the deny assignment.
    Id Unique identifier for the deny assignment.
    Excluded principals Whether there are security principals that are excluded from the deny assignment.
    Does not apply to children Whether the deny assignment is inherited to subscopes.
    System protected Whether the deny assignment is managed by Azure. Currently, always Yes.
    Scope Management group, subscription, resource group, or resource.

  5. Add a checkmark to any of the enabled items and then select OK to display the selected columns.

List details about a deny assignment

Follow these steps to list additional details about a deny assignment.

  1. Open the Deny assignments pane as described in the previous section.

  2. Select the deny assignment name to open the Users page.

    Screenshot of Users page for a deny assignment that lists the applies to and excludes.

    The Users page includes the following two sections.

    Deny setting Description
    Deny assignment applies to Security principals that the deny assignment applies to.
    Deny assignment excludes Security principals that are excluded from the deny assignment.

    System-Defined Principal represents all users, groups, service principals, and managed identities in an Azure AD directory.

  3. To see a list of the permissions that are denied, select Denied Permissions.

    Screenshot of Denied Permissions page for a deny assignment that lists the permissions that are denied.

    Action type Description
    Actions Denied control plane actions.
    NotActions Control plane actions excluded from denied control plane actions.
    DataActions Denied data plane actions.
    NotDataActions Data plane actions excluded from denied data plane actions.

    For the example shown in the previous screenshot, the following are the effective permissions:

    • All storage actions on the data plane are denied except for compute actions.

  4. To see the properties for a deny assignment, select Properties.

    Screenshot of Properties page for a deny assignment that lists the properties.

    On the Properties page, you can see the deny assignment name, ID, description, and scope. The Does not apply to children switch indicates whether the deny assignment is inherited to subscopes. The System protected switch indicates whether this deny assignment is managed by Azure. Currently, this is Yes in all cases.

Next steps